"Vascular specialists are trained to restore blood flow, but most of our long-term patients never need anything other than medication and good health habits," AbuRahma said.

"But if non-invasive treatments no longer work, we can install minimally invasive balloons or stents to unblock blood vessels, or perform open procedures, in which we create bypasses around a blocked artery," AbuRahma explained.

He is chief of vascular-endovascular surgery at West Virginia University's Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center.

People with vascular disease should be under the care of a vascular specialist for the rest of their lives, AbuRahma recommended.

"If you want to live to be a healthy old age, the best thing you can do is to really follow your doctor's orders," he said.